Miramax Films via Everett Collection
When most people claim that Pulp Fiction is Quentin Tarantino’s best movie, I often wonder if they’ve seen Jackie Brown. I assume they haven’t.
Jackie Brown is Tarantino’s third film, releasing after he became a household name with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and most casual moviegoers and die-hard Tarantino fans consider it to be his worst feature. It’s the lowest rated Tarantino film on IMDB and Metacritic (not counting his Grindhouse contribution from 2007), which is saying a lot considering how divisive the Kill Bill films are.
But this is a shame, because Jackie Brown is Tarantino’s masterpiece. Unlike other Tarantino films that rely heavily on cinematic style, this one cares more about the characters and their interactions than about being “cool.”
Consider, for example, the relationship between Jackie (Pam Grier) and Max Cherry (Robert Forster). Tarantino takes his time to develop both of these wounded characters, and as a result, we are invested in their lives. Contrast this to Pulp Fiction, a highly entertaining film that makes no effort to develop its characters. We observe them, to be sure, but what more can we say about Vincent Vega (John Travolta) than that he’s a nonchalant, laid-back hit man who traveled to Europe?
Both films find Tarantino paying homage to movie stars who were once famous. In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino resurrects Travolta’s career, but the fun part about watching that movie is simply observing Travolta in a great film — something audiences at that time hadn’t witnessed since Blow Out.
Jackie Brown does something similar with Grier and Forster, but instead of merely marveling at their star power, viewers are presented with two interesting and unique characters. Jackie, for example, is a black woman who has survived a harsh justice system, and Max is a burnt-out bail bondsman who questions the relevance of his work. Most of the film consists of quiet scenes in which the two share life experiences with one another.
The reason why Jackie Brown isn’t celebrated today, I think, stems from the fact that most of Tarantino’s films are kinetic and ultra-violent. Jackie Brown is the opposite. Instead, Tarantino often pauses throughout the film to let the audience simply hang out with his characters, and the first hour of the movie is virtually plotless. Even the death scenes are less sensational than what Tarantino usually offers.
All of this is not to say that Tarantino’s other films are trash, because I think we can all agree that he’s one of the best working filmmakers in cinema today. Rather, I want to remind viewers of Jackie Brown and stress that it’s not a minor achievement in the auteur’s oeuvre. Maybe there is no “best” Tarantino film, but Jackie Brown certainly isn’t the worst.
Instead of deeming Jackie Brown “boring” because it isn’t full of action or “pointless” because it focuses more on character than story, let’s appreciate the film for what it is than criticize it for what it was never trying to be — another Pulp Fiction. After all, Jackie Brown represents an artful mastery of the cinema that Tarantino hasn’t matched since.
What do you think? Cast your vote below.
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Lionsgate via Everett Collection
If the trailer for Scarlett Johansson's upcoming action film Lucy is any indication, her character is going to kick some serious butt. The director of Lucy, Luc Besson, is known for his high-octane action flicks, and is shifting gears by handing the leading role in this picture to a woman. Men have traditionally played the action hero in Hollywood films, but every now and then, a woman will come along to show them how it's done. Below are 10 of the most dangerous female action heroes that you must watch before Lucy hits theaters in August.
1. Hit Girl
Mindy Macready may be a sweet, innocent child, but her superhero alter-ego Hit Girl is a force to be reckoned with. Chloë Moretz owns the screen as the foul-mouthed fighter who can take on any grown man in Kick-Ass and Kick-Ass 2, two of the most innovative superhero movies of the 21st century. Below is a clip that demonstrates why Hit Girl is a champion.
2. Beatrix Kiddo
Quentin Tarantino's epic revenge fantasy Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 features arguably the most heroic, empowering action hero ever put on screen. Uma Thurman is Beatrix Kiddo, a.k.a. The Bride (a.k.a. Black Mamba), and her purpose is to kill the men and women who tried to murder her on her wedding day. Every fight scene is epic, but the clip below is especially awesome.
3. Yu Shu Lien and Jen Yu
Ang Lee's masterful Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is noteworthy for having two women who can match any male soldier. Michelle Yeoh is Yu Shu Lien and Ziyi Zhang is Jen Yu, and in the scene below, both women go toe-to-toe in an attempt to assert their authority. I won't spoil the ending for those who haven't seen the film, but in this clip, the fight ends in a draw, so it's only fair to include both of them.
4. Hanna
In Joe Wright's techno-pulp action film Hanna, Saoirse Ronan plays Hanna, a 15-year-old assassin who is being tracked down by a government agency. As the film progresses, we see how tough and lethal Hanna actually is. Below is a user-generated montage of the film that provides a glimpse of Hanna's dangerous grip.
5. Ryan Stone
If you're one of the few people in the world who hasn't seen Gravity, you owe it to yourself to marvel at Sandra Bullock's heroic performance as Ryan Stone, an astronaut who is lost in space and uses her strength to find her way back home. The clip below is one of the more moving scenes from the film that highlights Ryan's courage.
6. Clarice Starling
Long before the television series Hannibal, we had Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs, which introduced the world to Clarice Starling, a feminist action hero if ever there was one. Jodie Foster won her second Oscar for her performance as Clarice, a strong FBI agent who overcomes sexism in the agency to track down a serial killer. The scene below shows the lengths Clarice will go to save the day, as she has a conversation with the creepy Hannibal Lecter.
7. Princess Merida
In Pixar's Brave, Princess Merida challenges conventions by playing archery and doing all sorts of activities "respectable" women aren't allowed to do. Brave is a wonderful movie that should inspire young girls to follow their dreams despite the obstacles that are in their way.
8. Mallory Kane
We don't know much about Mallory Kane in Haywire, but we do know that she's a fighter. Gina Carano emerges as the next Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme with her forceful star presence, proving that women can be iconic action stars as well. Below is one of the best scenes from the movie.
9. Sidney Prescott
Aside from being one of the best horror series in cinema history, Wes Craven's Scream franchise deserves credit for creating Sidney Prescott. Neve Campbell revises the "scream queen" trope with her performance as Sidney, a tough, no-nonsense teenager who refuses to be a victim. Unlike other slasher films with women at the center, Scream portrays its female protagonist as smart and sophisticated. Below is a clip that shows why Sidney is a unique, unprecedented female character in the slasher genre.
10. Foxy Brown
Pam Grier shines in this blaxploitation classic as Foxy Brown, a tough black woman who gets revenge on the mobsters who murdered her boyfriend. The blaxploitation films of the 1970s turned Grier into a star and sex symbol, and they inspired Quentin Tarantino to cast Grier in Jackie Brown, a modern revision of the genre. Below is a clip that shows why Foxy Brown is the coolest female action hero on this list.
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Don Mitchell, the actor who played TV detective Ironside's sidekick, has died at the age of 70. He passed away from natural causes on Sunday (08Dec13).
Mitchell was best known for his role as ex-convict Mark Sange, the assistant to Raymond Burr's wheelchair-bound character in the U.S. police series from 1967 to 1975. He reprised the role for a 1993 TV movie.
He also appeared on TV shows The Fugitive, McMillan & Wife, Wonder Woman and I Dream of Jeannie, and starred opposite Pam Grier in 1973's cult film Scream Blacula Scream.
Mitchell was married to model Emilie Blake, with whom he had a daughter, from 1969 to 1970 and actress Judy Pace from 1972 to 1986. The couple had two daughters, one of whom is The Young and the Restless actress Julia Pace Mitchell.

Actor Allan Arbus, best known for his role as Dr. Sidney Freedman on M*A*S*H and, in real life, as the ex-husband of fashion photographer turned activist Diane Arbus, has died in his Los Angeles home. He was 95.
In dozens of episodes of M*A*S*H, Arbus mended psychological wounds with caustic zingers and a decidedly left-wing worldview that mirrored that of show creator Larry Gelbart. He's perhaps best known for his work tending to Alan Alda's Hawkeye in the series finale, "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen," then the highest rated U.S. broadcast of all time. In that epic 150-minute episode, Hawkeye finally had a nervous breakdown — after 11 seasons, mind you — because he witnessed a South Korean woman he was protecting smother her baby so that it wouldn't cry and reveal them to North Korean troops. It was a powerful episode, and demanded a lot from Freedman, who, like Hawkeye, may have realized that witty barbs can only keep the reality of war at bay for so long.
Though Arbus was best known for M*A*S*H, he had a previous claim to fame. Born in 1918, Arbus enrolled at New York's City College at the age of 15, but left a year later for a job at Russek's Department Store in Manhattan. There he met a young woman named Diane Nemerov, the daughter of the store's owners. They got married, and after they started a photography business together, Diane Arbus became world famous as a fashion photographer and, later, a documentarian of marginalized people. Arbus remains a major icon in the fashion world for her lush photo spreads in Vogue and Glamour from the '50s and '60s.
But her husband got tired of the photography world and closed his business to pursue a career in acting. He appeared in exploitation fare like the Pam Grier classic Coffy, before getting the call-up to M*A*S*H, and continued acting as recently as 2000. His final TV appearance came as Larry David's uncle on Season 1 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, an uncle who's falsely accused of sexually abusing Larry. But that mix of comedy, awkwardness, and outright pain? That's classic Allan Arbus, even at the end.
Follow Christian Blauvelt on Twitter @Ctblauvelt
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If you think about it, most of the season of The Real Wig Pullers of Lace Front Industries was spent with the women standing around in driveways fighting. That's really all they did. There was the fight in Porsha's driveway between her and Kenya and then another fight between them in the parking lot of a restaurant ("Bye Ashy!"). There was the infamous occasion where NeNe wouldn't let anyone into her house because they showed up three hours late and Kernya yelling at Kandi's assistant Don Juan in the driveway of Kandi's housewarming party. And finally, last night, we had Kernya Moo-ah hectoring Porsha in the driveway at her stupid "Iconic Female Icons of Blackness from Iconic Films or Films That Black Women Were In That Aren't Iconic or OK Maybe a TV Show Sponsored by Blackglamma" party. What a way to end a season! (Also, the best Housewives fight in a parking lot is the Melissa Gorga/Teresa Giudice throwdown from last season of Real Acid Tossers of Paramus Chemical, so they didn't even do it the best, they just did it a lot.
The whole thing started when Kernya Moo-ah met with four people to help plan the party. I believe one of the men, who remained silent and whose name was not put on screen, was the same party planner that Sheree Whitfield once asked who, exactly, was expected to check her, boo. I could be mistaken. This time around he had on glasses, like we wouldn't be able to tell Superman from Clark Kent. I think it was the same guy. Please, please be the same guy.
Oh, the one thing that had nothing to do with the party last night was Porsha's visit to Touchstone, which is where her psychiatrist lives. With a name like Touchstone you would think magicians lived there, and we are going to need a wizard to get any sense into Carvell, Porsha's husband who is a Cookie Puss come to life. He is also kinda awful. OK, he is entirely awful. And knowing that he filed for divorce just recently made this whole thing hurt more than getting a paper cut on your eyelid.
Carvell was really talking some nonsense. He wants Porsha to stay home and cook and clean for him and raise his children and not have a job. That is fine, if that is something Porsha wants too. It clearly is not. Then he says he wants her to have all that, but she hit the nail on the head saying, "You agree to it, but then you make it impossible to accomplish." I hate to say this, but maybe it's best that they got divorced. They never seemed like they were on the same team. The only time he came to her defense was at the fight when he got into a silly altercation with Kernya's main gay Brandon that made no sense and that was more because Brandon wasn't letting Carvell control the situation. He doesn't really defend her honor in any way, he just defends his honor in regards to how peopel are treating her. It's like Brandon was leaning on his car or something. The way Carvell treats her like a possession is gross. There's being protective and then there's carting something away like it's a statue that you bought at one of those stores in Manhattan that has been GOING OUT OF BUSINESS for the last 17 years. No one wants to live like that.
So, the party. Well, first, let's talk about everyone's outfits. Kernya Moo-ah absolutely killed it as Pam Grier. The wig, the body suit, even her face looked like a young Miss Greir. It was errrrrrrrrrrr-ything as the children would say. She might be awful on the inside, but there sure is some wonderful goodness on the outside (when she's not wearing too much foundation and her skin isn't broken out). Cynthia Bailey looked good as Diana Ross, but she should have gone with her shimmery caftan dress instead. We all know she has like seven Diana Ross wigs, so why she didn't wear one of them is beyond me. She looked like she could have tried harder. Her husband Peter looked great...if he was dressed as an asshole, because that's what he acted like all night.
NeNe Leakes got her gays to pull her together a Grace Jones look that would do any costume party proud but, I'm sorry, Grace is next to impossible to fully pull off and, well, she didn't quite. Kandi Burruss. Oh Kandi. You came and you gave without taking and we want to send you home to change, Oh Kandi. She looked like the the girl on the cover of the Tina Turner costume bag that you buy at Halloween Adventure where she looks like the celebrity she's supposed to be imitating, but everything is, well, just a little off and cheap. That wig looked like it used to be a homeless person's coat and it got so warn down someone combed it into a hairpiece. The rest of her costume was just, well. Not good. Phaedra Parks looked delightfully daffy as Eartha Kitt's Catwoman, but she was, you know, a TV character so it wasn't really applicable to the theme. That and some stun guns (I would like one of each of Phaedra's ridiculous products in a gift basket on Shop By Bravo Dot Come, please) were all Phaedra did last night.
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And then Porsha Stewart. Poor, poor Porsha. Now, Kernya wanted all the ladies to dress like iconic black women in film or iconic characters played by black women in film and then she was so bold as to tell each woman who she should come dressed as. Porsha's homework assignment was to come as Halle Berry from B.A.P.S., a movie that is not iconic and a role that is not iconic and, well, it was a way for Kernya to be mean to Porsha. Ms. Stewart, to her credit, tried on some B.A.P.S. looks at the hair salon and I think she actually looked really good. Like hoochie good, but still really good. Anyway her weave weaver convinced her that Kernya was trying to play a trick on her which, duh. Porsha was in a pickle. Go as Halle Berry according to plan and be a patsy or try something else? Well, the joke was on her no matter what.
Porsha shows up at the party dressed as Halle Berry not as B.A.P.S., but as Halle Berry as Dorothy Dandridge. So, basically she came as Dorothy Dandridge and you can cut out the Halle Berry part altogether. She looked good in a shimmery gold gown and a cute short 'do (maybe with all this divorce nonsense, she should change her hair and do this for real?). When Kernya saw her dressed as Dorothy Dandrige she flipped her afro wig and told Porsha to get out. She actually had security escort her out of the party because she wore the wrong costume. What sort of black souled beast is this woman? You know when you would leave the front door open as a child and your mother would say, "Were you raised in a barn?" What do you say to Kernya Moo-ah? "Were you raised in a Victorian orphanage where you were starved and beaten and all the love, decency, and manners driven from your heart?" Is that what you say? What can you say? You can say nothing. You can stand there and gape at her incredibly misconstrued sense of appropriateness. This was the grown up equivalent of packing up your toys and heading home.
Now Porsha might have handled it a little bit better. She smiled and smugly said, "I didn't want to do B.A.P.S. I did Dorothy Dandrige." She could have tried to play it off a bit more. "Oh, I wasn't comfortable doing that and Carvell gets made if I show off my Flying Saucers to everyone else in Cookie Puss Village," or maybe, "I tried to get B.A.P.S. together and I just couldn't find the right thing but I had this lying around so I just threw it together at the last minute." Something like that to show she tried.
Either way it wouldn't have made much of a difference. Kernya had laid the perfect trap. If Prosha would have been humiliated if she showed up as B.A.P.S. (You know how if you say something absurd long enough it starts to sound kinda surd and then the absurdity of that surdity makes you feel like your brain is meling into a pile of goo and their is a half-eaten sugar cone sticking out of it? That's how I feel about B.A.P.S. right now.) and if she didn't show up as B.A.P.S. then Kernya could humiliate her by throwing her out of the party. She even went so far as to pretend that she had some elaborate sketch planned for Porsha, but we all know that's a ruse. That's a scam. That's like that store in Manhattan that says it's been GOING OUT OF BUSINESS for 17 years.
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The rest of the Housewives did the right thing for a change and they all left the party together in protest. Cynthia, usually Kernya's only ally, even told her that she went too far. Kenya was being stupid. She was being as ridiculous as her afro wig was big. She was being as insincere was her peephole cutout was well placed. She was being as rational as her party theme was totally overdone and annoying. The whole thing was laughably stupid. She had no real argument at all. "OH, I had to cancle the program." Oh, shut up Kernya. You made that all up. (PS-This is also why the Housewives should never go to a costume party. The only thing worse than grown women fighting is grown women fighting while wearing ridiculous costumes. Remember Vicki at the Bunga Party last year on Real Citrus Rinds of Limefruit Jungle? It's sort of like getting a call that your mother died and having a Sisqo ringtone.)
But praise be to NeNe Leakse who showed up in a chariot drawn by two Nubian gods and she showed them all that, even though she is off in L.A., she is still the alpha female around here. People coaxed Porsha back in the party and NeNe told Kernya she better apologize or she was going to whip her to death in her Grace Jones costume. (However, NeNe shouldn't have gotten all up in that, "Never burn a bridge," line of reasoning when she and Kim had a falling out the way that they did.) Kernya did apologize and, while we all know it was a pile of iconic dung in film (probably from Weird Science) at least she did it and made it sound sincere.
And with that the party ended. The season ended, and we found out everything that happened to all of the housewives in those humorous little end cards that have become a staple of the series. They are all light and jovial and full of little digs. But not Porsha's. No. Hers just said. "Carvell filed for divorce." Period. Send. That is all it said. No pun, no sparkle in its eye, no hope for the future. Just a funeral procession driving across your screen. It was like a woman crying in her car in front of her lawyers office, just straggling out there along letting everyone see its mascara run down its face. Poor girl.
Yes, the party was over, all the guests were gone, the tears were dried, the animosity tamped deep down so that the finale party could go off without a hitch. The cameras were switched off. It was really over. The workmen were stacking up the chairs and taking down the "step and repeat" and Kernya Moo-ah decided it was finally time to take off her wig. She held it in her left fist by the knap as she ran her right hand through her real hair, mussing it around and trying to get rid of that strange painful feeling you get in your scalp when your hair has been immobilized for too long.
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She took a long walk over to the window and tried to look out at the night, but she just saw her reflection looking back at her, that gorgeous red dress and that hair that was crying bloody murder. Oh, how did she get here, she thought. What a year. All the fights and break ups and new friends and old wounds. All of this work and heartbreak and not anyone had seen it yet. "They're gonna love me," she thought about what was going to happen when the audience finally gets hold of this footage. "They are going to love me. They are going to do the Gone with the Wind fabulous twirl and they are going to buy my exercise video and they are going to be stealing my look and trying to be me. They're going to tell all the other women that they're wrong and they're gonna see, NeNe is gonna see, that the fans love me the most now. It's time for Kernya Moo-ah to arrive and she has, darling. Oh how she has. Just you wait. They're gonna adore me!"
She focused, not out on the stars and haggard trees beyond the pane but on her reflexion and, with her wig still in one hand, tried to shape the mess that was on her head. She got it to something she considered workable and then gave her best beauty pageant smile to the reflexion and turned around quickly on the balls of her feet. The dance floor was empty. There was no one to tell her if she was right or wrong, no one to tell her she looked good or a fright, just the parquet floor with a lone, green champagne bottle right in front of her feet. A workman rushed over and tried to pick it up, but Kernya said, "No, leave it." She kicked it slowly across the floor and followed behind it, kicking that empty bottle over and over again. She was soothed by its uneven rolling and bolstered by its little green glints sent off in every direction. But mostly she loved the sound it made while it rolled alone, completely hollow.
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
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Nobody knows what Quentin Tarantino's next movie will be. Based on conflicting interviews he's given since the release of his Spaghetti Southern Django Unchained, it doesn't even seem like Tarantino knows. He told Total Film that he envisioned Django and Inglourious Basterds as two parts of a trilogy, and that the third installment, possibly called Killer Crow would be about African-American soldiers fighting during World War II. On the other hand, he told a French publication that his next film would be "'smaller' than Django Unchained and more in the vein of Jackie Brown." If you ask me, the latter idea is probably the best choice he could make right now.
Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed Django Unchained. Along with Inglorious Basterds, Django displays a thrilling ability to find catharsis in unresolved historical trauma through genre tropes and slick, stylized violence. Alfred Hitchcock would have appreciated each film for being a "slice of cake rather than a slice of life." Both demonstrate a fantastical belief, however hopelessly naive, that cinema can offer resolution where real life cannot. We wish someone had been able to riddle Adolf Hitler with bullets rather than what really happened: him taking his own life on his own terms. Better yet, how great would it have been if a Jewish American soldier had done the deed? Django, likewise, taps into the idea that American slaveowners were due a greater comeuppance than they ever really got. With both of these films, Tarantino has performed a kind of pop culture exorcism.
So why, for the first time really in Tarantino's work, do we get a whiff of formula at the end of Django Unchained? Perhaps it's because, like any exorcism, pop culture or otherwise, it's a movie that depends upon shock for its effect. And up till Basterds and Django, his career had never relied as heavily on shock for shock's sake. Moments like the "adrenaline to the heart" scene from Pulp Fiction or Michael Madsen's ear-slicing set to "Stuck in the Middle With You" from Reservoir Dogs were startling jolts, yes, but integrated as natural outgrowths of the story situations and, more importantly, the characters' own personalities.
Unlike those films, shock is built in to the very concept of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. And it's hard not to think about what historical atrocity Tarantino might take on next in this style. He's already tackled the Holocaust and slavery. Why not make a blood-soaked reverse Western about Native Americans fighting against the white man? Or Chinese rebels fighting against the Japanese invasion of World War II? (Part of me secretly hopes that Tarantino will just make an outright sequel to Basterds in which Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine leads a daring mission that preemptively ends the war in the Pacific theater.) To me anyway, the fact that I've thought along those lines shows how Basterds and Django are driven as much by concept as they are by story. And that's new for Tarantino. His previous films were driven first and foremost by their characters and the situations they'd create for themselves or be thrust into as if by some divine, unseen force. You could say Basterds is Tarantino's "Holocaust movie," or Django is his "slavery movie." It's harder to sum up with one conceptual keyword what kind of movies Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and the Kill Bill duology are.
That's why I'm heartened by the idea that Tarantino may go back to the Jackie Brown well for his next movie. His 1997 blaxploitation homage is perhaps his least seen but most mature effort. If he takes the following four lessons from it, I think he'll end up with an even better movie. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
AGAIN, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
1. Keep It More Focused on Character…and Less on Concept
Jackie Brown is the closest thing Tarantino's ever produced to a "character study." It's about the budding relationship between a middle-aged flight attendant (Pam Grier's title character) and a tough but lonely bail bondsman (Robert Forster, never better). They're both faded individuals, left behind by life and looking for a big score to get them out of their doldrums. It's the best romance he's ever depicted, and its ending comes as a gut-punch. Contrast that with the relationship between Django (Jamie Foxx) and his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). That's just pure, unadulterated marital bliss...that happens to be marred by the fact they are slaves who are sold and separated. But if it weren't for external circumstances, they would be a truly dynamic duo, an unstoppable force. It also means there isn't much subtlety in their relationship. In Jackie Brown on the other hand, the relationship between Forster and Grier is complicated not so much by external factors as by their own inner flaws. Character drives their evolution, and the story.
2. Don’t Be Afraid to Edit.
Django Unchained is a 165-minute movie, and it feels like it. There are a couple separate moments in the last half-hour that could serve as natural endpoints. But the movie keeps going. Harvey Weinstein even considered the idea of dividing it into two movies, with the break point occurring right when Leonardo DiCaprio's Calvin Candie is introduced. At 151 minutes, Jackie Brown is also a long movie. But it earns its screentime because the film is ultimately about the slow internal transformation of its characters. It doesn't add twists for the sake of twists and tack on a couple more endings even after its primary antagonist is killed.
3. Keep the Stakes Clear.
The stakes are incredibly stark in Jackie Brown. Both Forster and Grier want to make a better life for themselves. And to do that they need money. So they go after money. And by illegal means. Django Unchained seems to have pretty clear stakes too. The title character wants to be reunited with his wife and free her from slavery. Unfortunately, there are a number of narrative tangents along the way that take Django away from that objective, tangents that feel more like delaying tactics until we get to the story proper. They don't feel truly earned. If Weinstein had split up the movie into a Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, the first installment would have concerned itself primarily with Django and King Schultz' (Christoph Waltz) search for the Brittle brothers. That's a storyline that takes up about an hour of screentime as it is and has almost nothing to do with establishing an urgency to find Django's wife. It turns the movie into a picaresque. To say nothing of Tarantino's own onscreen appearance as an unscrupulous mining boss near the end of the film, after the dispatch of its primary villain.
4. Have a strong female lead.
Tarantino's usually created incredibly strong female characters for his movies. But Washington's Broomhilda is reduced to screaming terror much of the time she's onscreen. That's a token gesture on Tarantino's part to establish the horror of slavery — he shows her punished by being trapped in an underground hotbox, brutally whipped, and ostensibly prostituted — but it clashes against the hyperbolic Spaghetti Western tone that pervades the rest of the movie. Django himself becomes a fast-drawing sharpshooter practically as soon as he's released from a chain-gang of slaves. Why couldn't Broomhilda have been shown to be as formidable? Jackie Brown is not only the title character, she's a force of nature, even if she's been beaten down by life in her own, admittedly far less horrific, way.
Do you agree that it's time for Tarantino to take his career in a different direction? And does the prospect of a movie more in the vein of Jackie Brown make you as happy as it makes me?
Follow Christian Blauvelt on Twitter @Ctblauvelt
[Photo Credits: Miramax, John Phillips/Getty Images]
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Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' Fact or Fiction: Mandingo Fighting, Bounty Hunters, and More
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That Quentin Tarantino is a nostalgia fetishist. Aside from ransacking cinema history for all the old genres, directors, and films he routinely references in his movies, the video-store-clerk-turned-filmmaker usually throws a cinematic bone or two to actors he considers among his personal faves. Actors who maybe haven't worked in a while or whose projects haven't exactly been top-shelf.
John Travolta is obviously the most notable beneficiary of a Tarantino career assist. Pulp Fiction catapulted him back to Saturday Night Fever levels of stardom after a cruel '80s doldrums, and his wattage has more or less stayed the same ever since. A true child of the '70s, most of the semi-forgotten actors QT chooses to rehabilitate with roles in his movies are faded Me Decade thesps, like Robert Forster and David Carradine. Oddly enough, though, it's only male actors for whom the Tarantino Career Bounce really seems to work. We've ranked the success or failure of the following actors' attempted career revivals by the following scale:
That's a Bingo! (Total Career Revival)
Royale With Cheese (Moderate Career Revival, with some follow-up films that may be unworthy of the actor's ability)
Zed's Dead, Baby (No Career Boost Whatsoever)
Click here to see how we've ranked these actors' QT-assisted comebacks:
10 Stars Whose Careers Quentin Tarantino Attempted to Revive
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A trailer for the new kung-fu film, The Man With The Iron Fists, was just released, and it has all the violence and gore we want from an old school-style punch'em-up.
Introducing “the new legends of kung fu” with a bang, we see slow-mo fight sequences, high-flying jumps, bone-crunching kicks, flipped tables, and Bronze Lion – the man we assume to be the titular fighter with the iron fists after watching him slam his knuckles into a metal dragon face with a loud, cringe-inducing clang.
Wu Tang Clan front man RZA directs, co-wrote and stars as a blacksmith in feudal China who makes weapons for a small village, until he must use his skills to protect himself and his fellow villagers.
The trailer also features a quick glimpse of Russell Crowe as “The Baddest Man Alive,” Lucy Liu, Pam Grier, and Cung Lee. The Universal Pictures martial arts movie, co-produced and co-written by Eli Roth, hits theaters November 2.
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[Photo Credit: Universal Pictures]
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Which Action Movie Should You See This Fall?

Hollywood.com's own Aly Semigran is about to get her greatest wish: An all-female version of the hit franchise The Expendables — the action star-packed testosterone-fest starring, well, just about everybody — will officially be backed by The Grey producer Adi Shankar. Variety has confirmed that Shankar's banner, 1984 Private Defense Contractors, has tapped Dutch Southern to write the script, and that the company is already in talks with several bankable actresses.
Earlier this week, Hollywood.com released a list of our own picks to star in a then-theoretical female version of the franchise, which features the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, and Bruce Willis. Topping our list were Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, and Haywire's breakout star Gina Carano, as well as Jane Fonda, Pam Grier, and Angelina Jolie.
An impressive roster for sure, but hear me out — since The Expendables 2 took a chance on pretty boy Liam Hemsworth, shouldn't the female version hire his newly punk-rock fiancée, Miley Cyrus? Think about it. It totally works.
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[PHOTO CREDIT: LIONSGATE]
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The concept for 2010's sensory overload The Expendables was simple: get every action star from the '80s, '90s, and '00s and put them all in a movie together and let them blow a bunch of s**t up. The formula paid off, as the all-star bonanza — which featured the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, and Bruce Willis — earned nearly $275 million worldwide.
So when it came to the inevitable sequel, the filmmakers applied the old adage, "If it's broke, Jason Statham probably destroyed it." Well, that and, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The Expendables 2, which hits theaters this Friday, is taking the same formula (and cast members) from the original and throwing in a few more action heroes, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Liam Hemsworth, and Chuck Norris.
With both Expendables films having now compiled just about every male action star on the planet and a possible third with all the ones they missed this time around, we here at Hollywood.com think it's high time female action stars get their turn in the franchise. (Sorry, Charisma Carpenter, we know you're there to represent!)
From legendary action stars like Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton (pictured, being totally awesome in Terminator 2: Judgment Day), to hot newcomers like Gina Carano, we see no reason why there can't be an all-female Expendables. Here are our picks for the lady Expendables. Hollywood, take note: these fearless, gun-toting, power-packed ladies know how to kick ass, take names, and would no doubt make for a big opening weekend.
The Legends
Sigourney Weaver: When it comes to the most knock-out, drag-down bad-ass female in movie history, there's no one comparable to Weaver's iconic Ripley. While there were plenty of powerful female action stars who came before her (think Tura Santana in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!) Weaver has become the gold standard for tough movie heroines. In The Expendables world, she would be the seasoned vet of the bunch, like the Stallone or the Schwarzenegger of the crew, only with acting skills to boot. Weaver made the crowd go wild with just a cameo in The Cabin in the Woods, so imagine an entire movie of her being awesome (and hopefully reviving her classic Aliens line "Get away from her, you bitch!").
Linda Hamilton: Like Weaver's Ripley, Hamilton's Sarah Connor is one fierce mama. Just how awesome was Hamilton in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day? (Well, first, see photo above. If that isn't that very definition of female badassery, we don't know what it is.) She turned the genre on its head by turning the female lead from a damsel in distress to an all-out tough-as-nails action figure.
Jane Fonda: Before she was kicking all of our asses on her workout tapes, Fonda was kicking intergalactic ass in the 1977 classic Barbarella. While it's been a little while since Fonda was in action heroine mode, she certainly hasn't forgotten what it's like to be a tough, take-no-prisoners lady in Hollywood.
Pam Grier: No one dared to mess with Grier in movies like Coffy (pictured below), Foxy Brown, and of course, Jackie Brown — and they most certainly wouldn't now either.
The Vets
Brigette Nielsen: Think of her as the Lady Lundgren: tall, blonde, and damn intimidating. Before she was Flava Flav's love interest (a superhero feat onto itself), Nielsen was a bona fide action star, working alongside the likes of Schwarzenegger (Red Sonja) and her ex-husband Stallone (Rocky IV, Cobra).
Grace Jones: Jones would be a Lady Expendables double threat. Not only would she be able to harkon back to her action heroine days a la A View to Kill and Conan the Destroyer, but she could also provide the kick-ass soundtrack.
Lucy Lawless: A lady Expendables movie without Xena? Ayiyiyiyiyiyiyi! We wouldn't stand for it.
Michelle Yeoh: No all-star action movie ensemble would be complete without a martial arts phenomenon. Yeoh has wowed audiences for years with her skills in flicks like Super Cop (pictured below), Tomorrow Never Dies, and the Oscar-winning masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. No one has ever made kicking ass look so graceful as Yeoh.
The Next Generation
Milla Jovovich: Jovovich has carried an entire action franchise (the Resident Evil films) for a decade, but at just 36 the model/actress still has plenty of on-screen butt-kicking years ahead of her. In addition to bringing iconic video super heroine Alice to life, Jovovich has one of the most memorable movie costumes of all-time with her bandaged duds in sci-fi favorite The Fifth Element.
Carrie-Ann Moss: Same goes for Moss, actually. Not only does she have one of the most famous movie costumes of the 90s (who didn't dress like Trinity and Neo?) but she was the female face of the wildly successful Matrix franchise. Sure Keanu was the top-billed star, but Carrie-Ann was the one who had moviegoers saying, "Whoa!"
Gina Carano: The true rookie of the new generation of female action stars. Sure, Carano may be new to the big screen (she beat some of Hollywood's hottest guys, including Channing Tatum and Michael Fassbender, to a pulp in 2012's action caper Haywire) but she's been a full-fledged action star for years. The 30-year-old is a world champion mixed martial arts fighter and was once an American Gladiator. No stuntwoman necessary here, Carano, pictured here in a scene from Haywire, is the real deal.
The Wildcard
Angelina Jolie: Every Expendables movie needs a cameo (for the sequel it's tennis great Novak Djokovic) and who would be a bigger, better cameo than Angelina Jolie? The most famous woman in the world may be a beautiful, serious Oscar-winning actress (and mother and humanitarian and Brad Pitt's fiancee), but she's also a bona fide action star thanks to her roles in movies like Salt (pictured below), Mr. &amp; Mrs. Smith, Wanted, Beowulf, Gone in Sixty Seconds, and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. With a resume like that, it's amazing any paparazzi ever try to get in her way.
Would you see an Expendables movie with an all-female cast? Who would you want to see in it? Share your thoughts in the comments section!
[Photo Credits: Hamilton: TriStar Pictures; Weaver: 20th Century Fox; Grier: American International Pictures; Yeoh: Dimension Films; Carano: Lionsgate; Jolie: Relativity Media]
Follow Aly on Twitter @AlySemigran
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Starred in Tarantino's "Jackie Brown"; Tarantino tailored the part for Grier, her first leading role in over 20 years

Played small role of a police detective investigating a possible homicide in "Jawbreaker"

Feature film debut, "The Big Doll House"

Appeared with Snoop Dogg in "Bones"

Had leading role in "Coffey"

Episodic TV debut as guest, "Miami Vice"

Diagnosed with cancer; underwent treatment for two years

Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Co-starred in the Showtime comedy-drama "Linc's"

Played the sister of Jennifer Beals' character in the showtime series "The L Word," a story about the lives and loves of a group of lesbian friends

Hired to answer phones at American International Pictures (AIP)

Had co-starring role in "Ghosts of Mars"

Auditioned for a part in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction"; did not get the role but Tarantino promised to write a role for her

Traveled around USA with family before settling in Denver, Colorado

Participated in beauty contests in order to earn money for college

Acted onstage in productions in Colorado

Debut in a TV-movie, "Badge of the Assassin" (CBS)

Moved to Los Angeles (date approximate)

Along with Adrien Brody and Jon Seda, co-starred in the crime drama "Love The Hard Way"

Summary

Actress Pam Grier was a 1970s pop culture icon thanks to a string of roles as tough and sexy heroines in such blaxploitation classics as "Coffy" (1973), "Foxy Brown" (1974) and "Sheba, Baby" (1975). A statuesque figure who radiated confidence and determination, she surpassed the exploitative bonds of the genre to establish herself as the first black female action hero and box office draw. Grier struggled to surpass the limitations of her early screen roles, but a revival of interest thanks to the home video boom brought her back to films in the '80s and '90s. Unabashed fan Quentin Tarantino paid homage to her screen persona with "Jackie Brown" (1997), which led to a long-overdue career boost; she was soon tackling substantive roles in the Showtime series "The L Word" (2004-09) and reaping the rewards of a career forged in hard work and determination. She remained an enduring symbol of female empowerment at its funkiest and most ferocious.

Name

Role

Comments

Gwendolyn Samuels

Mother

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Companion

involved romantically in the early 1970s

Kevin Evans

Companion

born in 1961; together since c. 1996; has a son from a previous relationship; announced engagement in January 1998

Education

Name

East High School

Notes

"She doesn't like the Hollywood rat race. And she hasn't gone out of her way to look for jobs. When we had the premiere of 'Original Gangstas', she didn't come. She's not interested in promoting herself." --director Larry Cohen quoted in Entertainment Weekly, December 19, 1997.

"I grew up around a lot of black guys, and you can't be black and my age and not know who Pam Grier was and think of her as the Queen of Women. I'm talking about Pam's iconic stature and her presence and all that, but at the end of the day you can throw all that s--- away. Because she's a really good actress. ... " --Quentin Tarantino in Us, January 1998.

"I was brought up to be self-sufficient and to accept that as a member of the human race, there are certain things you have to go through. I always thought that not living here in Hollywood was a way of showing that I'm not afraid of losing my careerl I'm afraid of losing me." --Pam Grier to Michael Keaton in Interview, January 1998.